Y Cwm

Y Cwm/The Valley is the local name for Lower Fishguard, once the nucleus of the town in the days when shoals of herring brought prosperity to this community. For several centuries the people who lived here lived upon the fish. Men sailed out with the tide and returned with holds full of silver, the women gutted, salted and packed the herrings in barrels that traders took and sold near and far. Quite suddenly, in 1790, the shoals changed their course and failed to arrive. The community down in the valley gradually dwindled and the Upper Town swelled and predominated.

Fishing continued on a smaller scale and even now crabs and lobsters are trapped off the coast but the village has become a sleepy place and mainly a holiday haunt. Photogenic, certainly: Moby Dick and Under Milk Wood were filmed here and the houses along the quay often appear in TV programmes .

In this shot the tide is low and the winding course of the river Gwaun can be glimpsed through the trees and out into the harbour. The houses along the old village street have not changed much but very few are family homes any more and, except in the summer, few children are to be seen. One pub remains but no shops.

The road that follows around the hill above the harbour was cut in the 1913 to replace the old road that climbed straight up - too steep a gradient for motor cars.